Apparatus and method for mounting electronic parts

ABSTRACT

An electronic parts mount apparatus for taking out semiconductor chips from a semiconductor wafer held on a wafer hold section by a transfer head comprising a plurality of suction nozzles and transporting and mounting the semiconductor chips to and on a board has a parts recognition camera disposed in a manner that it can advance to and retreat from the wafer hold section for picking up an image of the semiconductor wafer. A parts mounting step for mounting a plurality of semiconductor chips on the board by the transfer head and an image picking up step for picking up a plurality of semiconductor chips to be next taken out by the parts recognition camera are performed concurrently. Thereby, the number of electronic parts per mount turn can be increased, the tact time can be shortened, and the electronic parts can be efficiently taken out and mounted on the board.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to an electronic parts mount apparatus and anelectronic parts mount method for taking out an electronic part in wafershape such as a semiconductor chip and mounting the electronic part on aboard of a lead frame, etc.

2. Description of the Related Art

An electronic part cut out in wafer shape, such as a semiconductor chip,of electronic parts used with electronic machines hitherto has beentaken out by a mount apparatus including a dedicated taking out unit andmounted on a board of a lead frame, etc. In the dedicated unit, atransfer head for taking out a semiconductor chip moves up and down at afixed taking out position and a semiconductor wafer is held so that thesemiconductor wafer is horizontally movable relative to the transferhead. The semiconductor wafer is moved in order, whereby onesemiconductor chip at a time is taken out by the transfer head. Thesemiconductor chip to be taken out is registered to the transfer head bypicking up an image of the electronic part in wafer shape by a camerafixedly placed on a wafer hold section and recognizing the position ofthe electronic part.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

However, conventional mount apparatus described above, only onesemiconductor chip is mounted in one mount turn in which the transferhead reciprocates between the wafer hold section and the lead frame, andthe tact time is delayed because the image pickup operation by thecamera in the wafer hold section and the mount operation by the transferhead are performed in the same cycle. Therefore, there is a limit onimprovement of the mount efficiency.

It is therefore an object of the invention to provide an electronicparts mount apparatus and an electronic parts mount method capable ofefficiently taking out electronic parts in wafer shape and mounting theelectronic parts on a board.

According to the invention, there is provided an electronic parts mountapparatus for taking out electronic parts in wafer shape andtransporting and mounting the electronic parts to and on a board by atransfer head, the apparatus including a wafer hold section for holdingthe electronic parts in wafer shape; a board positioning section forpositioning the board; a plurality of suction nozzles provided on thetransfer head for sucking and holding the electronic parts; a head movemeans for moving the transfer head between the wafer hold section andthe board positioning section, and performing registration operation ofthe transfer head when the electronic parts are taken out in the waferhold section and when the electronic parts are mounted in the boardpositioning section; an image pickup means disposed in a manner that theimage pickup means can advance to and retreat from the wafer holdsection, the image pickup means for picking up an image of theelectronic parts in the wafer state when the image pickup means advancesto above the wafer hold section; a position detection means fordetecting the positions of the electronic parts based on image dataprovided by picking up the image of the electronic parts; and a controlsection for controlling the head move means based on the positiondetection result.

According to the invention, there is also provided An electronic partsmount method for taking out electronic parts in wafer shape andtransporting and mounting the electronic parts to and on a board by atransfer head including a plurality of suction nozzles, the methodincluding the steps of image picking up for picking up an image of theelectronic parts in wafer shape by advancing an image pickup means toabove a wafer hold section for holding the electronic parts, wherein theimage pick up means is disposed in a manner that the image pick up meanscan advance to and retreat from the wafer hold section; positiondetecting for detecting positions of the electronic parts based on imagedata obtained by the step of image picking up; parts taking out forcontrolling the head move means based on a result of the step ofposition detecting, and taking out the electronic parts in order fromthe wafer hold section by the transfer head; and parts mounting formoving the transfer head to above the board positioned by a boardpositioning section, and mounting the electronic parts on the board;wherein the steps of parts mounting and image picking up for theelectronic parts to be next taken out are performed concurrently.

By the above mentioned configuration and/or method, the transfer headfor taking out electronic parts and transferring the electronic parts toa board comprises a plurality of suction nozzles and the step of partsmounting in the board positioning section and the step of image pickingup for the electronic parts to be next taken out in the wafer holdsection are performed concurrently. Therefore, the number of electronicparts per mount turn can be increased, the tact time can be shortened,and the electronic parts in the wafer state can be efficiently taken outand mounted on the board.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a plan view of an electronic parts mount apparatus of oneembodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a sectional view of the electronic parts mount apparatus ofthe embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram to show the configuration of a control systemof the electronic parts mount apparatus of the embodiment of theinvention;

FIGS. 4A and 4B are block diagrams for explaining a process of anelectronic parts mount method of the embodiment of the invention; and

FIGS. 5A and 5B are block diagrams for explaining a process of theelectronic parts mount method of the other embodiment of the invention.

In the figures, reference numeral 1 refers to a board transport section;2 to a board; 5A and 5B to Y-axis tables; 6 to a first X-axis table; 7to a transfer head; 8 to a Suction nozzle; 9 to a board recognitioncamera; 10 to a second X-axis table; 11 to a parts recognition camera;12 to a wafer hold section; 14 to a semiconductor wafer; 14 a to asemiconductor chip; and 23 to an image recognition section,respectively.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

An embodiment of the invention will be explained with reference to theaccompanying drawings. FIG. 1 is a plan view of an electronic partsmount apparatus of one embodiment of the invention, FIG. 2 is asectional view of the electronic parts mount apparatus of the embodimentof the invention, FIG. 3 is a block diagram to show the configuration ofa control system of the electronic parts mount apparatus of theembodiment of the invention, and FIGS. 4A, 4B, 5A, and 5B are processexplanation drawings of the electronic parts mount method of theembodiment of the invention.

To begin with, the whole configuration of the electronic parts mountapparatus will be explained with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. In FIG. 1,in the electronic parts mount apparatus, a board transport section 1including two transport passages 1 a is disposed in an X direction. Inone of transport passage 1 a, a chuck mechanism 1 b for chucking andholding a board 2 is disposed movably in the transport direction (Xdirection). The chuck mechanism 1 b holding an end part of the board 2moves along the transport passage 1 a, whereby the board transportsection 1 transports the board 2 and positions the board 2 at each workposition of paste application, electronic part mounting, etc., describedlater.

A board supply section 3 and a paste application section 4 are disposedupstream of the board transport section 1 (left in FIG. 1). The boardsupply section 3 supplies the board 2 on which an electronic part is tobe mounted downstream via the board transport section 1. The pasteapplication section 4 applies a paste for bonding electronic parts to apart mount position on the supplied board 2.

Y-axis tables 5A and 5B are disposed in a direction orthogonal to theboard transport section 1 downstream from the paste application section4. The board transport section 1 between the Y-axis tables 5A and 5Bserves as a board positioning section for positioning the board 2; herean electronic part is mounted on the board 2.

A wafer hold section 12 is disposed adjacent to the board positioningsection. The wafer hold section 12 holds a wafer sheet 13 on which alarge number of separate semiconductor chips 14 a of electronic partsare put on a hold table 12 a. That is, the wafer hold section 12 holdsthe semiconductor chips 14 a in wafer shape. A wafer stock section 18for holding a new semiconductor wafer 14 in a standby mode is placedadjacent to the wafer hold section 12.

As shown in FIG. 2, an ejector mechanism 15 is disposed below the waferhold section 12. The ejector mechanism 15 comprises a moving table 16,and a pin hoisting and lowering mechanism 17 for moving up and down apin 17 a is placed on the moving table 16. As the moving table 16 isdriven, the pin hoisting and lowering mechanism 17 moves in the X and Ydirections below the semiconductor wafer 14.

As the pin hoisting and lowering mechanism 17 is driven with the pin 17a registered below any desired semiconductor chip 14 a, the pin 17 apushes up the semiconductor chip 14 a from the lower face of the wafersheet 13. In this state, a suction nozzle 8 of a transfer head 7 sucksthe upper face of the semiconductor chip 14 a and rises, whereby thesemiconductor chip 14 a is taken out from the wafer hold section 12.

A first X-axis table 6 and a second X-axis table 10 are placed on theY-axis tables 5A and 5B. A transfer head 7 including a plurality ofsuction nozzles 8 is attached to the first X-axis table 6 and a boardrecognition camera 9 is disposed adjacent to the suction nozzles 8 in amanner that the board recognition camera 9 can be moved integrally withthe transfer head 7. As the Y-axis table 5A and the first X-axis table 6are driven, the transfer head 7 and the board recognition camera 9 aremoved in one piece. The Y-axis table 5A and the first X-axis table 6serve as a head move mechanism for moving the transfer head 7.

A parts recognition camera 11 is attached to the second X-axis table 10.As the Y-axis table 5B and the second X-axis table 10 are driven, theparts recognition camera 11 is moved horizontally in the X and Ydirections and advances to and retreats from the wafer hold section 12within the horizontal plan above the wafer hold section 12. An image ofthe lower part is picked up by the parts recognition camera 11 placed atany desired position above the wafer hold section 12, whereby an imageof any desired position of the semiconductor wafer 14 is picked up.Recognition processing is performed for the image data provided bypicking up the image, the position of any desired semiconductor chip 14a can be recognized.

The transfer head 7 is registered to the semiconductor chip 14 a to betaken out based on the position recognition result and the moving table16 is driven for registering the pin 17 a to the semiconductor chip 14a, whereby the semiconductor chip 14 a is picked up from the wafer holdsection 12 by the suction nozzle 8 of the transfer head 7. At this time,a plurality of semiconductor chips 14 a are picked up by a plurality ofsuction nozzles 8 of the transfer head 7, whereby a plurality ofsemiconductor chips 14 a can be taken in one mount turn in which thetransfer head 7 reciprocates between the board 2 and the wafer holdsection 12.

Next, the configuration of the control system will be described withreference to FIG. 3. In FIG. 3, a CPU 20 is a control section forperforming centralized control of sections described below. A programstorage section 21 stores various programs such as an operation programfor executing the mount operation of the transfer head 7 and aprocessing program for performing recognition processing of boardrecognition, parts recognition, etc. A data storage section 22 storesvarious pieces of data such as mount data. An image recognition section23 performs recognition processing of the image data provided by imagepickup of the parts recognition camera 11 and the board recognitioncamera 9, thereby recognizing the board 2 in the board transport section1 and the semiconductor chip 14 a in the wafer hold section 12 anddetecting their positions. Therefore, the image recognition section 23serves as position detection means. Additionally, the head movemechanism 26 serves as head move means, and the parts recognition camera11 serves and the board recognition camera 9 serve as image pickupmeans.

A mechanism drive section 24 drives the following mechanisms under thecontrol of the CPU 20: A board transport mechanism 25 is a mechanism fordriving the chuck mechanism 1 b in the board transport section 1. A headmove mechanism 26 (head move means) moves the transfer head 7 by theY-axis table 5A and the first X-axis table 6. A camera move mechanism 27moves the parts recognition camera 11 by the Y-axis table 5B and thesecond X-axis table 10. The ejector drive mechanism 28 drives the movingtable 16 and the pin hoisting and lowering mechanism 17 for causing thepin 17 a to push up the chip. When the CPU 20 controls the head movemeans, it registers the transfer head 7 relative to the wafer holdsection 12 based on the position detection result of the imagerecognition section 23.

The electronic parts mount apparatus is configured as described above.The electronic parts mount operation will be discussed with reference toFIGS. 4A, 4B, 5A, and 5B. In FIG. 4A, the board 2 is supplied to theboard transport section 1 by the board supply section 3. A paste forbonding electronic parts is applied to the board 2 by the pasteapplication section 4 and then is transported to the board positioningsection between the Y-axis tables 5A and 5B and is positioned. Afterthis, the transfer head 7 is moved to above the board 2 by the firstX-axis table 6 and an image of the board 2 is picked up by the boardrecognition camera 9. Recognition processing of the image data providedby picking up an image of the board 2 is performed by the imagerecognition section 23, whereby the position of the board 2 isrecognized.

At this time, the parts recognition camera 11 moved by the second X-axistable 10 is positioned above the wafer hold section 12 and picks up animage of a plurality of semiconductor chips 14 a to be next taken outconcurrently with picking up an image of the board 2 by the boardrecognition camera 9 (a step of image picking up). Recognitionprocessing of the image data provided by picking up an image of thesemiconductor chips 14 a is performed by the image recognition section23, whereby the positions of the semiconductor chips 14 a to be nexttaken out are recognized (a step of position detecting).

After this, as shown in FIG. 4B, the parts recognition camera 11retreats from above the wafer hold section 12 to the front side and thetransfer head 7 moves to above the wafer hold section 12. Thesemiconductor chips 14 a are taken out in order from the wafer holdsection 12 by the suction nozzles 8 of the transfer head 7 based on theposition recognition result of the semiconductor chips 14 a (a step ofparts taking out).

The transfer head 7 holding the semiconductor chips 14 a on the suctionnozzles 8 is moved to above the board 2 positioned on the board transfersection 1 as shown in FIG. 5A. Next, the suction nozzles 8 are moveddown in order to the mount points of the board 2, whereby thesemiconductor chips 14 a are mounted on the board 2 (a step of partsmounting). To mount the semiconductor chips 14 a on the board 2, thetransfer head 7 is registered relative to the board 2 based on theposition recognition result of the board 2.

In parallel with the step of parts mounting, the parts recognitioncamera 11 advances to above the wafer hold section 12 and picks up animage of a plurality of semiconductor chips 14 a to be next taken out.That is, here the step of parts mounting on the board 2 by the transferhead 7 and the step of image picking up for the electronic pars to benext taken out by the parts recognition camera 11 in the wafer holdsection 12 are performed concurrently.

In FIG. 5B, the parts recognition camera 11 retreats from above thewafer hold section 12 to the front side and the transfer head 7 moves toabove the wafer hold section 12 to take out the parts in a similarmanner to that in FIG. 4B, and the step of parts taking out and the stepof parts mounting similar to those described above are repeated.

As described above, in the embodiment, a plurality of semiconductorchips 14 a are transported to the board 2 at the same time by thetransfer head 7 comprising a plurality of suction nozzles 8 and aremounted on the board 2 in order in one mount turn in which the transferhead 7 reciprocates between the wafer hold section 12 and the board 2.Further, the mount operation on the board by the transfer head 7 and theimage pickup operation of the semiconductor chips 14 a to be next takenout in the wafer hold section 12 are conducted concurrently.

Thus, it is made possible to drastically improve the mount efficiency ascompared with the mount work of die bonding apparatus in the related arttransferring and mounting one semiconductor chip 14 a in one mount turnand performing the mount operation by the transfer head and the imagepickup operation in the wafer hold section in the same cycle. Since aplurality of semiconductor chips 14 a can be mounted in one mount turn,the move speed of the transfer head 7 can be set to stable speed with amargin without being set to excessively high speed, the shock when thetransfer head 7 stops in the mount operation can be eased, a mountposition shift can be prevented, and the mount position accuracy can beprovided.

According to the invention, the transfer head for taking out electronicparts and transferring the electronic parts to a board comprises aplurality of suction nozzles and the step of parts mounting in the boardpositioning section and the step of image picking up for the electronicparts to be next taken out in the wafer hold section are performedconcurrently, so that the number of electronic parts per mount turn canbe increased, the tact time can be shortened, and the electronic partsin the wafer state can be efficiently taken out and mounted on theboard.

What is claimed is:
 1. An electronic parts mount apparatus for takingout electronic parts in wafer shape and transporting and mounting theelectronic parts to and on a board, the apparatus comprising: a waferhold section for holding the electronic parts in wafer shape; a boardpositioning section for positioning the board; a transfer head includinga plurality of suction nozzles for sucking and holding the electronicparts; a head move means for moving the transfer head between the waferhold section and the board positioning section, and performingregistration operation of the transfer head when the electronic partsare taken out in the wafer hold section and when the electronic partsare mounted in the board positioning section; an image pickup meansdisposed in a manner that the image pickup means can advance to andretreat from the wafer hold section, the image pickup means for pickingup an image of the electronic parts in the wafer state when the imagepickup means advances to above the wafer hold section; a positiondetection means for detecting the positions of the electronic partsbased on image data provided by picking up the image of the electronicparts; and a control section for controlling the head move means basedon the position detection result.
 2. The electronic parts mountapparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image pickup means is movedhorizontally in X and Y directions, wherein the Y direction is definedby a Y-axis table disposed in a direction orthogonal to a boardtransport section for transporting the board, and wherein the Xdirection is defined by an X-axis table placed on the Y-axis table. 3.The electronic parts mount apparatus according to claim 1, wherein, whenthe image pickup means advances to above the wafer hold section, theimage pickup means picks up an image of a plurality of electronic partsto be next taken out by the transfer head.
 4. The electronic parts mountapparatus according to claim 1, further comprising: an ejector mechanismplaced below the wafer hold section for driving a moving table and a pinhoisting and lowering mechanism for pushing up electronic parts.
 5. Theelectronic parts mount apparatus according to claim 4, wherein thecontrol section further controls so that the ejector mechanism performsregistration of electronic parts based on the detection result of theposition detection means.
 6. The electronic parts mount apparatusaccording to claim 1, wherein, concurrent with the apparatus mountingthe electronic parts, said image picking up means and position detectionmeans are adapted for picking up and detecting an image of nextelectronic parts to be mounted next.
 7. An electronic parts mountapparatus for concurrently taking out a plurality of electronic parts inwafer shape and transporting and mounting the plurality electronic partsto and on a board, the apparatus comprising: a wafer hold section forholding the plurality of electronic parts in wafer shape; a boardpositioning section for positioning the board; a transfer head includinga plurality of suction nozzles each for concurrently sucking and holdingone or more of the plurality electronic parts; a head move means formoving the transfer head between the wafer hold section and the boardpositioning section, and performing registration operation of thetransfer head when the plurality of electronic parts are taken out inthe wafer hold section and when the plurality of electronic parts aremounted in the board positioning section; an image pickup means disposedin a manner that the image pickup means can advance to and retreat fromthe wafer hold section, the image pickup means for picking up an imageof the plurality of electronic parts in the wafer state when the imagepickup means advances to above the wafer hold section; a positiondetection means for detecting the positions of the plurality ofelectronic parts based on image data provided by picking up the image ofthe electronic parts; and a control section for controlling the headmove means based on the position detection result.
 8. The electronicparts mount apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the image pickupmeans is moved horizontally in X and Y directions, wherein the Ydirection is defined by a Y-axis table disposed in a directionorthogonal to a board transport section for transporting the board, andwherein the X direction is defined by an X-axis table placed on theY-axis table.
 9. The electronic parts mount apparatus according to claim7, wherein, when the image pickup means advances to above the wafer holdsection, the image pickup means picks up an image of another pluralityof electronic parts to be next taken out by the transfer head.
 10. Theelectronic parts mount apparatus according to claim 7, furthercomprising: an ejector mechanism placed below the wafer hold section fordriving a moving table and a pin hoisting and lowering mechanism forpushing up some portion of the plurality of electronic parts.
 11. Theelectronic parts mount apparatus according to claim 10, wherein thecontrol section further controls so that the ejector mechanism performsregistration of the plurality of electronic parts based on the detectionresult of the position detection means.
 12. The electronic parts mountapparatus according to claim 7, wherein, concurrent with the apparatusmounting the plurality of electronic parts, said image picking up meansand position detection means are adapted for picking up and detecting animage of a next plurality of electronic parts to be mounted next.
 13. Anelectronic parts mount apparatus for concurrently taking out a pluralityof electronic parts in wafer shape and transporting and mounting theplurality electronic parts to and on a board, the apparatus comprising:a wafer hold section for holding the plurality of electronic parts inwafer shape; a board positioning section for positioning the board; atransfer head including a plurality of suction nozzles each forconcurrently sucking and holding one or more of the plurality electronicparts; a head move means for moving the transfer head between the waferhold section and the board positioning section, and performingregistration operation of the transfer head when the plurality ofelectronic parts are taken out of the wafer hold section and when theplurality of electronic parts are mounted in the board positioningsection; an image pickup means disposed in a manner that the imagepickup means can advance to and retreat from the wafer hold section, theimage pickup means for picking up an image of the plurality ofelectronic parts in the wafer state when the image pickup means advancesto above the wafer hold section; a position detection means fordetecting the positions of the plurality of electronic parts based onimage data provided by picking up the image of the electronic parts; anda control section for controlling the head move means based on theposition detection result; wherein the control section further controlsso that the ejector mechanism performs registration of the plurality ofelectronic parts based on the detection result of the position detectionmeans, and further wherein, when the image pickup means advances toabove the wafer hold section, the image pickup means picks up an imageof another plurality of electronic parts to be next taken out by thetransfer head.